Recently Watched Films

[Gaendaal]

The Thin Red Line.

Horribly overwrought and heavy-handed. I actually felt angry afterwards at having sat through such self-satisfied and boring tripe. Tips for director: i) if you're going to have Adrian Brody in your film then at least have him say something more than half a dozen words, ii) voice-overs pretty much always sound naff especially if they're cod-philosophy intoned by some hayseed savant and iii) people staring into the middle distance is not acting.

Sean Penn pretty much did the same speech (complete with the same middle-distance stare and draw-on-cigarette-then-spit move) about three times...

Sheesh.

I agree with you about Penn, who manages to annoy me in whatever film he "acts" in, but disagree about the rest of the movie. It's not my favourite Malick - Days Of Heaven and Badlands are much better I think - but compared to real "boring tripe" by the likes of Oliver Stone it's pretty strong.
(The title of Greg Kelley's Rossbin solo album is a quote from Thin Red Line, btw)

See, for me that's like saying "bad film isn't as bad as really bad film"...

Agreed on Penn though. How he gets work, let alone won and Academy Award, is beyond me.

[Dan Warburton]

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[Chromosome]

The Thin Red Line is wonderful. I also just recently watched it.

Gaendaal, does Adrian Brody really need more fame? Honestly, are actors all we can talk about? I This is what troubles me about film. I can't even look at Bill Murray without thinking of the troubled older gentlemen trying to find some lost thing in his life. [I still love Lost in Translation, though].

Concerning voice-overs, I agree that they should not be relied upon and used often in film, however, I think it is done beautifully in The Thin Red Line.

[surfer]

I can't even look at Bill Murray without thinking "Former greenskeeper and now about to become Masters champion."

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[cleanzero]

Add me to the fans of The Thin Red Line and also of Sean Penn. What's wrong with the man ? I like him, especially in Assassination.

[Chromosome]

Add me to the fans of The Thin Red Line and also of Sean Penn. What's wrong with the man ? I like him, especially in Assassination.

I liked him in Sweet and Lowdown as well as in The Thin Red Line. I haven't seen Assassination.

[Gaendaal]

Gaendaal, does Adrian Brody really need more fame? Honestly, are actors all we can talk about?

Um...

I'm not sure where you're coming from with the "more fame" angle, to be honest. I just think that Brody's a good actor and it seems bizarre to me to have a good resource and then not use it (especially when you've got George Clooney bumped up the credits for five minutes' work). I do agree that you sometimes see an actor in a film and it's the actor, not the character, that you're seeing but I just thought that the (mis)use of Brody in this was a mistake. Yes, you can have films (good films) without actors but I don't think we're falling into some celebrity trap by discussing actors in a film...

I still love Lost in Translation, though

I hated Lost In Translation, so maybe our tastes just diverge too much...

Concerning voice-overs, I agree that they should not be relied upon and used often in film, however, I think it is done beautifully in The Thin Red Line.

I agree more with one of the reviewers I read who likened them to someone reading the rejects from a fortune cookie factory, I'm afraid. Over-wrough is the word I keep coming back to.

Gah! The more I think about it, the more it irritates me...

"Look! Look! There's a fledgling bird, dying in the mud! It's a metaphor for the young men dying in war! See how my camera lingers over it in a self-reflexive admission of the vicarious pleasure we take from death. Do you see!?"

(If this is too off-topic for a thread just about recently watched films then a mod can bump it elsewhere...)

[franz bieberkopf]

there are plenty of decent/potentially interesting actors (elias koteas being my own dorky personal preference) in that movie and as a result a lot of them don't get mad screentime. that's kind of the point though. aesthetically a different experience is had by virtue of holding company with all these different fragmented characters. in some ways it feels more true to the idea of 'montage' than do a lot of other more wound 'mosaic' films (say Todd Solondz stuff or Magnolia or any number of others... just for offhand example). social continuity and some sort of narrative thru-line are busted up just a bit more i think... and it does have some interesting effects.

don't want to defend it too much because it is by far my least favourite of all his films. i agree that it has a bit of a melodramatic streak, but i think you are harshing it a bit more than it deserves. maybe that opinion is coloured by how much i enjoy the rest of his body of work; and indeed, it's so scant and stylistically consistent that it's hard for me not to think of the four films as part of some sort of continuity that i happily accept (in this case for worse, in most cases for better).

even here, he is still one of the most spacially sensuous (and distinctly so!) filmmakers America has put ever put forth.

that said, your reaction plants a seed of doubt in my head about mine, Gaendaal.

[Chromosome]

I still love Lost in Translation, though

I hated Lost In Translation, so maybe our tastes just diverge too much...

Let's leave it at that. I don't even like film that much anyway. I give up talking about it here.

[O'Grady]

Peter Tscherkassky - Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (2005)

Some nice visual treatment of Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The soundtrack was nice in place but on the whole a bit too loop based for my taste.

[MRS]

Not to slash any icons here but I've long found Malick criminally overrated. I don't mind Badlands, Sheen is terrific. Days Of Heaven I hate with the heat of a thousand suns. Of all the film courses I've taken from high school through college, this shows up the most, why why why. Thin Red Line was a good war movie, nothing more in my opinion. Didn't see The New World, I just can't take Colin Farrell seriously. Looks like we have a couple more on the horizon according to wiki.

[snailed]

Peter Tscherkassky - Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (2005)

Some nice visual treatment of Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The soundtrack was nice in place but on the whole a bit too loop based for my taste.

I much prefer Outer Space, but I thought this one was pretty great too.

[surfer]

The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973) - Superb. This is better than California Split. One of the best American movies of the 70s, and I dont even like Noir particularly. Gould mumbles his way through one ambiguous situation after another. Hayden Sterling doing a great parody or caricature (or not) of Ernest Hemingway. All the supporting cast is excellent. Fantastic cinematography, very dingy to dank lighting, even the pastel LA light is dirty. Suitable ending. Highly recommended.

[nate dorward]

Avalon, Men in War (one of the great war films--so there, Dan!), & Robocop.

Not sure quite what to make of Avalon--lovely visuals, interesting concept, but a slack narrative. I love the bassett hound, though.

[O'Grady]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte (1971)

I've found Fassbinder's other early works to be quite scrappy. This was quite different though, it comes together nicely. Lou Castel and Eddie Constantine were great. Beautiful colours and movement.

[eraritjaritjaka]

Iodo - Kim Ki-young (even better the 2nd time!)
Suicidal Variations - Kim Gok & Kim Sun (music by Hong Chulki)
+
Election - Johnny To
Election 2 - Johnny To
Hua yang de nian hua - Wong Kar-wai
Chungking Express - Wong Kar-wai

these last 4 are the first non-korean narrative films i have watched in more than one year (about 63 total).

[cleanzero]

Au hasard Balthazar - R. Bresson

Second Bresson movie that I see, and an other great one. There's this ABYSS between what happens and how the characters react that I find puzzling and fascinating at the same time. It's like there are no emotions left to express. Still it is extremely poetic, with the donkey mute observer and victim of human misery, and not a simple intellectual demonstration. There's that scene where Gerard breaks everything during the party and people keep on dancing like nothing is happening that is fantastic.

[Salty Swift]

The only Pixar film I've not seen until now......I'm glad my kids opened my eyes to this stuff!

[Dan Warburton]

.

[walto]

Did you like Les Enfants, Dan? The play is very annoying, I think.